Thursday, December 8, 2016
Battle Hymn of the Revitpublic
GUTEN TAG FUCKTARDS!!!
I've been in an inexplicably good mood lately. Not having to use Revit or deal with Architects/Engineers - other than tangentially (and getting a raise) probably has a lot to do with that).
Then, out of the blue, some faggots start babbling about how awesome Revit is (see comments in: No Wonder This Revit Shit Eats Itself). As you can see, I made the distinct mistake of trying to defend my attitude towards Revit, rather than simply reminding myself that anyone extolling the virtues of Revit is likely to have sustained multiple severe head injuries.
They will agree with me that Revit has "a lot of messed up functionality", and have run into times where they are "wasting hours trying to figure things out" or having to "fake it" (kind of like any women unlucky enough to find themselves on the receiving end of attempted penetration from their micro-penises), but listening to them make excuses for Revit - and blaming themselves when things don't show up on a drawing (which is fine if they are only fucking themselves over - but when other people rely on your shit to be right, it's not fine) is a reminder of just how masochistic someone can willingly be.
One of my favorite bits was the claim that "when everyone is working in CAD, everyone is dumb, all the information is dumb, nothing is connected, and everything is manual input, unless you are using add-ins or other MEP functions with it, either way information is not typically active. You have zero ability to assign parameters to information, filter information efficiently, actively schedule information, or even assign formulas for schedules or blocks to add more intelligent useful information".
Holy Fucking Shit.
It's almost hard to believe that much bullshit can pour out of one person's brain - like they are repeating the Revit sales pitch they were given verbatim. Now, in theory - some of these things are great 'it's all connected', yeah - until 'it's all fucked'. Revit was ALLOWING people to fuck themselves (and by extension - me) into a hole in the ground on every single project - which is why I didn't really differentiate between Revit problems and user error.
So much of what was being done with Revit at my old firm was 'cutting edge', meaning that they were constantly experimenting with it - leading to all kinds of new and exciting ways for things to fuck up. I knew the fun was about to start anytime I saw the Revit Buttfuckery Team huddled around somebodies desk discussing something along the lines of "we've determined that the way we've been doing things doesn't open enough people up to the risk of having their whole day wasted".
Another gem is "I have found if you use just about anything third party for Revit, especially for electrical, you are definitely going to be doing it the hard way". So, in addition to being responsible for figuring out how to use Revit, I was now responsible for generating content as well - with little to no way of knowing whether something that I was doing wouldn't decide to fuck me later (as bad, if not worse than 3rd party content - or content included with Revit would).
The other problem being that I wasn't in control of what other people put into a model. I had a mechanical designer who was convinced that (at some point) they would slap mechanical units onto a drawing and it would magically populate my panel schedule (he actually said this so many times, I was starting to question whether he hadn't been replaced by a recording).
By the time I left, I was still manually entering information into my panel schedules (CAD) or manually entering information into a disconnect switch (Revit). Half of the time I would get their mechanical schedule, and immediately start spotting inconsistencies, errors, etc. (none of which I would've noticed if I just let a program fill shit out for me - and at least some of which the person making that schedule would have noticed if they were paying attention to scheduling units instead of expecting that to happen automatically as well.
Now - Revit vs. CAD stability. Revit fucking crashes - that's just a goddamned fact. It doesn't matter what kind of machine you have (the one I had before I left my last firm was a FUCKING BEAST), and while they might've managed to make it 'more stable' over time, I don't think there was a day that went by where I didn't have to deal with it locking up, throwing up some apocryphal error, or just plain eating itself.
Again, I had little to no control over how projects were started, especially after the 'one file for all' revolution. When I would bring up problems with stability, they were consistently met with an indifferent 'yeah, it does that'. Could one of you fucktards have been able to show them how to do it better? Maybe. Maybe fucking not.
In the rare event that ACAD crashes, locks up, etc. (and it is rare), in the time it takes to fire Revit up and load a model, I can have CAD up, file open, and replace any work I've lost (15 minutes max between autosaves - which still always seems to be the most productive 14 minutes and 59 seconds of the day) and then some done. Oh - and rather than 'putting my computer into a coma' pressing 'shift' while I pan does 3D orbit in ACAD - not that I ever need to do that.
Just this morning, I received a CAD file of a site plan for an almost 700,000 s.f. industrial building (that I had already designed systems for - and was waiting for the owner to quit fucking with the location of the guard shack/entrance gates so I could finish the project). I had it cleaned up and ready to issue within an hour. Revit wouldn't have even known what the fuck to do with it. Then I dove back into the 164,000 s.f. middle school I've been working on for the last couple of days (after issuing a 267,000 s.f. high school earlier this week), and at no point did I think 'Revit would've improved my ability to do this job' (even if it worked as advertised - which it doesn't).
But hey, keep on assigning formulas for schedules or blocks to add more intelligent useful information - I'll be busy putting projects out the door.
Fuck Revit.
-S.F.
Next Time: Somebody probably tries to convince me I'm wrong.
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Getting Down To Business
Knock Knock Fuckheads!
Last time we had a little fun bitching about Microsoft Word - which, in the meantime, I used to fix up the formatting on a few more papers for my wife. Unsurprisingly it came up with new and exciting ways to fuck things up, every one of which I was able to overcome. She actually used the template her professor provided, which (ironically) had things broken in it (sheets weren't numbered correctly, etc.), so I got to learn a bit more about how things work. It had one fairly impressive feature - a table of contents that automatically populated based on headings (although nothing I couldn't do in a few seconds and not have to worry about it automatically fucking things up).
Back at my job, It's amazing to think that I've been here for an entire year - which (combined with the two months I took off before jumping on this opportunity) gives me just over 14 months of Revit clean time. It's still inconceivable how much damage was done to my psyche having to deal with an army of fuckwits trying to convince me that the poorly designed and implemented piece software that they've had jammed up their ass would be a good fit for me as well.
This company is configured quite a bit differently than my previous one - which did reviews twice a year, one of which would be accompanied by a raise based on performance (and, despite having two middle fingers up at Revit the whole time, I would always get one). Here, it was up to me to go to the owner and convince them that I deserve more money. Fortunately I've made a good impression on everyone I work with, and I'm on good terms with the owner (we ended up talking about classic cars for the majority of the time).
I didn't get quite what I was hoping for, but it was still fairly substantial (enough to keep me from immediately going back to job hunting), and since we've been busy, I've been averaging 5 hours of overtime a week, which puts me almost back to where I was at before (especially since my old job had switched me over to salary - meaning no more overtime). And, of course, the fact that I can simply do my job, and not have some moron standing in the way of my ability to be productive is worth an almost incalculable sum.
I was also surprised a few months back to find out that I have been amassing considerably more paid time off than I was originally led to believe - which means I'll be taking off damn near the entire end of the year (and still rolling some over). This job isn't the be all end all, but it's been a good opportunity for me to learn more useful stuff to add to my resume (as opposed to just slapping a piece of software on my list of skills - which I will most likely remove at some point in time in the future).
One of these days I'm going to figure out what I want to do with my life, but one thing I can guarantee - it won't involve Revit, because fuck Revit.
-SF
Next Time: Bring the Butthurt
Last time we had a little fun bitching about Microsoft Word - which, in the meantime, I used to fix up the formatting on a few more papers for my wife. Unsurprisingly it came up with new and exciting ways to fuck things up, every one of which I was able to overcome. She actually used the template her professor provided, which (ironically) had things broken in it (sheets weren't numbered correctly, etc.), so I got to learn a bit more about how things work. It had one fairly impressive feature - a table of contents that automatically populated based on headings (although nothing I couldn't do in a few seconds and not have to worry about it automatically fucking things up).
Back at my job, It's amazing to think that I've been here for an entire year - which (combined with the two months I took off before jumping on this opportunity) gives me just over 14 months of Revit clean time. It's still inconceivable how much damage was done to my psyche having to deal with an army of fuckwits trying to convince me that the poorly designed and implemented piece software that they've had jammed up their ass would be a good fit for me as well.
This company is configured quite a bit differently than my previous one - which did reviews twice a year, one of which would be accompanied by a raise based on performance (and, despite having two middle fingers up at Revit the whole time, I would always get one). Here, it was up to me to go to the owner and convince them that I deserve more money. Fortunately I've made a good impression on everyone I work with, and I'm on good terms with the owner (we ended up talking about classic cars for the majority of the time).
I didn't get quite what I was hoping for, but it was still fairly substantial (enough to keep me from immediately going back to job hunting), and since we've been busy, I've been averaging 5 hours of overtime a week, which puts me almost back to where I was at before (especially since my old job had switched me over to salary - meaning no more overtime). And, of course, the fact that I can simply do my job, and not have some moron standing in the way of my ability to be productive is worth an almost incalculable sum.
I was also surprised a few months back to find out that I have been amassing considerably more paid time off than I was originally led to believe - which means I'll be taking off damn near the entire end of the year (and still rolling some over). This job isn't the be all end all, but it's been a good opportunity for me to learn more useful stuff to add to my resume (as opposed to just slapping a piece of software on my list of skills - which I will most likely remove at some point in time in the future).
One of these days I'm going to figure out what I want to do with my life, but one thing I can guarantee - it won't involve Revit, because fuck Revit.
-SF
Next Time: Bring the Butthurt
Friday, November 11, 2016
Microsoft Word 2016 Can Suck My Dick
Bonjour Le Skullfuckers!!!
I figured with Revit out of the picture, I should probably turn my ire to my second least favorite software company - Microsoft. They've obviously sucked a lot of dick for a lot of years, and don't seem to be showing any signs of slowing down (if anything, they are doubling down on it).
This became especially obvious when my wife recently started a Doctorate program, which seems to mostly revolve around writing fucktons of papers. Fortunately for her she is an excellent writer, but technology seems to fucking hate her - exacerbated by the fact that most of it is designed by half-wit morons whose idea of 'user friendly' is hiding extremely important functionality behind a wall of ribbons (sound familiar?)
For her, if something can go wrong with a computer, piece of software, or printer - it will, and at the worst possible time. I could use the exact same shit all day long without fail, but the second she sits down, it's a goddamned miracle when it doesn't catch on fire. She's highly intelligent, and isn't a technophobe, but her experience has left her without a lot of confidence that she won't get screwed over somehow.
The format they have to use for their papers is different than what she is used to, and despite being given a template (that doesn't seem to work correctly - probably because it was made in an older version of Word) and having a book that shows how everything is supposed to look, it still took over an hour last night to get everything formatted correctly - while every strange fucking thing that could come out of the woodwork seemed to be conspiring against her.
Now that we've done it all, I'm going to make this paper into a 'template' (not one to be applied, just one to open up and start a new paper - with all of the headers, numbering, spacing, etc. already in place and ready for editing/writing). Now, I'm no 'Word Guru' (I prefer OpenOffice - both due to it being free - and not a Microsoft product) but I've used it for as long as it has existed - and while I don't tend to use a lot of the formatting functions (preferring to stick to manually formatting) I have had to delve into them more than once.
The first thing we ran into was that she had several sources that were hyperlinks, and they wouldn't break where she wanted them to (they would jump down to the next line - and only THEN would they wrap). They didn't have to stay hyperlinks, but even after turning it off, it would not allow me to break it where I wanted to - forcing me to manually type the part that I wanted to stay on the first line, then delete what I had typed from the rest of the 'link'.
Then - lo and behold, the line spacing was fucked up because it was taking it upon itself to insert a paragraph symbol, and deleting it would cause it to go back to wrapping incorrectly (a little fiddling around and I found that I could put an extra space at the end to make it stay put and keep the line spacing the same.
After I fixed the first link, I figured I would go online and see if anyone had a better way to do it - the first one I ran across was to insert a special character called an 'no width optional break' and it... didn't fucking work. At all. I went ahead and fixed the rest manually - and later I ran across a suggestion to use a no-width empty character (I'll try that the next time I get pulled in to assist).
Next was setting up the header(s). I had actually gone through the process once, so I was fairly confident I could do it again. Started by using the header that showed up at the top of the page, but of course that's wrong. Went into 'Insert' and 'Header', and was off to the races. Right up until I accidentally held down 'shift' for too long and the stupid 'sticky keys' menu popped up - then disappeared and left me unable to type (it would just 'tick tick') requiring a reboot (and then a quick search on how to make that shit go away permanently).
Each issue that I had to fix was stupider than the last (constantly having to fix line spacing and other 'auto-formatting' that needed to take a fucking hike), but I finally beat it - because the one indispensable tool I have is the fact that I'm goddamned relentless when it comes to figuring shit out, which was one of the reasons Revit left such a bad taste in my mouth. People would get the incorrect impression that I just didn't want to learn something 'different'. The reality was that it wasn't just 'different' it was FUCKED.
At least with Microsoft products like Windows and Word I can go online and find where other people have had the same problems (and have a 50/50 chance of finding a solution that actually works). With Revit it was a wasteland of nothingness - especially at first. But even years later, I would try searching for a solution to an issue and the vast majority of the hits were either out of date (and/or didn't address the problem) or were for places offering 'Revit training' (i.e. - pay us money to show you the useless tutorials that are already available for free online.
I came to the conclusion last night that the only reason that these people get away with putting out shit software with shitty 'features' is that they are safely esconced somewhere that I can't get hold of them and slam their fucking hands into a drawer repeatedly. It's pretty much the same with everything else - faceless corporations who don't give a fuck about who they screw over, and a populous willing to shrug and say 'it is what it is'.
Fuck that.
And if you think like that - then FUCK YOU.
Sincerely,
S.F.
Next Time: Getting Down To Business
I figured with Revit out of the picture, I should probably turn my ire to my second least favorite software company - Microsoft. They've obviously sucked a lot of dick for a lot of years, and don't seem to be showing any signs of slowing down (if anything, they are doubling down on it).
This became especially obvious when my wife recently started a Doctorate program, which seems to mostly revolve around writing fucktons of papers. Fortunately for her she is an excellent writer, but technology seems to fucking hate her - exacerbated by the fact that most of it is designed by half-wit morons whose idea of 'user friendly' is hiding extremely important functionality behind a wall of ribbons (sound familiar?)
For her, if something can go wrong with a computer, piece of software, or printer - it will, and at the worst possible time. I could use the exact same shit all day long without fail, but the second she sits down, it's a goddamned miracle when it doesn't catch on fire. She's highly intelligent, and isn't a technophobe, but her experience has left her without a lot of confidence that she won't get screwed over somehow.
The format they have to use for their papers is different than what she is used to, and despite being given a template (that doesn't seem to work correctly - probably because it was made in an older version of Word) and having a book that shows how everything is supposed to look, it still took over an hour last night to get everything formatted correctly - while every strange fucking thing that could come out of the woodwork seemed to be conspiring against her.
Now that we've done it all, I'm going to make this paper into a 'template' (not one to be applied, just one to open up and start a new paper - with all of the headers, numbering, spacing, etc. already in place and ready for editing/writing). Now, I'm no 'Word Guru' (I prefer OpenOffice - both due to it being free - and not a Microsoft product) but I've used it for as long as it has existed - and while I don't tend to use a lot of the formatting functions (preferring to stick to manually formatting) I have had to delve into them more than once.
The first thing we ran into was that she had several sources that were hyperlinks, and they wouldn't break where she wanted them to (they would jump down to the next line - and only THEN would they wrap). They didn't have to stay hyperlinks, but even after turning it off, it would not allow me to break it where I wanted to - forcing me to manually type the part that I wanted to stay on the first line, then delete what I had typed from the rest of the 'link'.
Then - lo and behold, the line spacing was fucked up because it was taking it upon itself to insert a paragraph symbol, and deleting it would cause it to go back to wrapping incorrectly (a little fiddling around and I found that I could put an extra space at the end to make it stay put and keep the line spacing the same.
After I fixed the first link, I figured I would go online and see if anyone had a better way to do it - the first one I ran across was to insert a special character called an 'no width optional break' and it... didn't fucking work. At all. I went ahead and fixed the rest manually - and later I ran across a suggestion to use a no-width empty character (I'll try that the next time I get pulled in to assist).
Next was setting up the header(s). I had actually gone through the process once, so I was fairly confident I could do it again. Started by using the header that showed up at the top of the page, but of course that's wrong. Went into 'Insert' and 'Header', and was off to the races. Right up until I accidentally held down 'shift' for too long and the stupid 'sticky keys' menu popped up - then disappeared and left me unable to type (it would just 'tick tick') requiring a reboot (and then a quick search on how to make that shit go away permanently).
Each issue that I had to fix was stupider than the last (constantly having to fix line spacing and other 'auto-formatting' that needed to take a fucking hike), but I finally beat it - because the one indispensable tool I have is the fact that I'm goddamned relentless when it comes to figuring shit out, which was one of the reasons Revit left such a bad taste in my mouth. People would get the incorrect impression that I just didn't want to learn something 'different'. The reality was that it wasn't just 'different' it was FUCKED.
At least with Microsoft products like Windows and Word I can go online and find where other people have had the same problems (and have a 50/50 chance of finding a solution that actually works). With Revit it was a wasteland of nothingness - especially at first. But even years later, I would try searching for a solution to an issue and the vast majority of the hits were either out of date (and/or didn't address the problem) or were for places offering 'Revit training' (i.e. - pay us money to show you the useless tutorials that are already available for free online.
I came to the conclusion last night that the only reason that these people get away with putting out shit software with shitty 'features' is that they are safely esconced somewhere that I can't get hold of them and slam their fucking hands into a drawer repeatedly. It's pretty much the same with everything else - faceless corporations who don't give a fuck about who they screw over, and a populous willing to shrug and say 'it is what it is'.
Fuck that.
And if you think like that - then FUCK YOU.
Sincerely,
S.F.
Next Time: Getting Down To Business
Monday, November 7, 2016
No Wonder This Revit Shit Fucking Eats Itself
Yo Fuckheads,
I was going to waste my time talking about this bullshit election - but that's depressing, plus I'm working on my third massive High School project in the last few months, and this thing was Revited to the goddamned gills before being sent to me as a CAD file. A lot of the exterior windows/storefront have so much fucking detail (cross-sections of extrusions, fasteners, brackets, glass, etc.) that just to change everything to my background layer (without losing linetype information) required grabbing dozens and dozens of little bites.
I'm sure whoever modeled it was busy sucking their own dick over how awesome it was that they could grab views of all of the various connections to use as details and just note them up, and probably set their larger views to lower detail, but when I get the thing it's just black blobs as far as the eye can see, (and literal fucktons of extra linework - ONE GODDAMNED corner joint has 2456 lines).
Hell - one 52' wall (that has an exploded hexagonal grid hatching in it for some reason - possibly some kind of insulated glass?) contained nearly 80,000 lines. Obviously Revit handles objects differently than what I'm seeing in the exported file, but as many people have pointed out, EVERY SINGLE PERSON using a Revit model has to be aware of how much shit their families are bringing to the table (even if you are just linking a file) to keep it from turning into a bloated clusterfuck that crashes every time you look at it wrong.
I'm sure if the person who exported this file gave a shit (instead of most likely opining why anyone wouldn't just do everything in Revit) they could have set up a background specifically for export that didn't have 4 trillion extra lines that add zero value to the plan to anyone who isn't an Architect (and questionable value for those who are). Even then, there are always fucked up view problems, overlapping shit due to multiple disciplines. Overlapping (or more amusingly - slightly offset) architectural + mechanical families for toilets/sinks/etc. is a common one - I deleted a couple from this plan as well.
A stylized plan with a little extra detail is cool - and I will leave one alone (other than a little tidying up) if it isn't horribly bloated. I can remember a time when I could select an entire floor plan (sometimes even multiple floors of a building) and change layer all at once from properties. I'm not sure what the upward limit is - but it's in excess of what is necessary to depict a floor plan, that's for damn sure. I've talked (at great length) about how I get a little OCD when I start cleaning one up - but there is nothing quite like having a super-clean background to work on.
Keeping the file size reasonable also guarantees that the file will open/save quickly - change views quickly (not sure why, but the last one would take forever to switch paper space views - and I'm making damn sure this one doesn't go the same route). Someone else set that one up (and had started this one) and while I did some cleanup on the other one, I'm going to beat every last bit of unnecessary shit out of this one. There were a few other systems that the other guy was going to leave in just in case we pick them up later, but I'm ditching them (we can always bring them back in from the original drawings we received).
What's great is that even though I like to complain about the garbage files I receive - I can slap on my headphones, crank up some death metal, and fix any stupid fucked up piece of shit that some moron sent me with ACAD. Nobody is going to build anything off of my drawings, so as long as I'm accurately representing what the people installing my systems need to see, then I've got a lot of leeway. Even if it takes the majority of a day to get it ready to go forward - I used to spend the majority of a day trying to get one stupid fucking thing to work in Revit (on an annoyingly regular basis) and that didn't guarantee I wouldn't actually be further into a fucking hole than when I started.
I was highly amused by a recent response to a post I did back in December of 2013 while I was still under the Revit bootheel. Some idiotic fucking glitch (that came out of nowhere) was making it to where I suddenly couldn't add light fixtures to a circuit. Apparently, despite multiple new releases of Revit since then, they were running into exactly the same issue. It seems like it was limited to one file (could have been one of the thousands and thousands of unnecessary settings - but both I and others went through it repeatedly with no success, leaving me having to fake it in).
But hey - at least they've got 'sketchy lines' now (oh, and the ability to make stuff in the foreground stand out better).
Fucking Fuckwits.
Fuck Autodesk, Fuck Revit, Fuck anyone forcing good, hardworking individuals into using Revit, and if you don't like it - GET FUCKED.
Sincerely,
S.F.
Next Time - I go after Motherfucking Microsoft Word (it will make more sense when you read it).
I was going to waste my time talking about this bullshit election - but that's depressing, plus I'm working on my third massive High School project in the last few months, and this thing was Revited to the goddamned gills before being sent to me as a CAD file. A lot of the exterior windows/storefront have so much fucking detail (cross-sections of extrusions, fasteners, brackets, glass, etc.) that just to change everything to my background layer (without losing linetype information) required grabbing dozens and dozens of little bites.
I'm sure whoever modeled it was busy sucking their own dick over how awesome it was that they could grab views of all of the various connections to use as details and just note them up, and probably set their larger views to lower detail, but when I get the thing it's just black blobs as far as the eye can see, (and literal fucktons of extra linework - ONE GODDAMNED corner joint has 2456 lines).
Hell - one 52' wall (that has an exploded hexagonal grid hatching in it for some reason - possibly some kind of insulated glass?) contained nearly 80,000 lines. Obviously Revit handles objects differently than what I'm seeing in the exported file, but as many people have pointed out, EVERY SINGLE PERSON using a Revit model has to be aware of how much shit their families are bringing to the table (even if you are just linking a file) to keep it from turning into a bloated clusterfuck that crashes every time you look at it wrong.
I'm sure if the person who exported this file gave a shit (instead of most likely opining why anyone wouldn't just do everything in Revit) they could have set up a background specifically for export that didn't have 4 trillion extra lines that add zero value to the plan to anyone who isn't an Architect (and questionable value for those who are). Even then, there are always fucked up view problems, overlapping shit due to multiple disciplines. Overlapping (or more amusingly - slightly offset) architectural + mechanical families for toilets/sinks/etc. is a common one - I deleted a couple from this plan as well.
A stylized plan with a little extra detail is cool - and I will leave one alone (other than a little tidying up) if it isn't horribly bloated. I can remember a time when I could select an entire floor plan (sometimes even multiple floors of a building) and change layer all at once from properties. I'm not sure what the upward limit is - but it's in excess of what is necessary to depict a floor plan, that's for damn sure. I've talked (at great length) about how I get a little OCD when I start cleaning one up - but there is nothing quite like having a super-clean background to work on.
Keeping the file size reasonable also guarantees that the file will open/save quickly - change views quickly (not sure why, but the last one would take forever to switch paper space views - and I'm making damn sure this one doesn't go the same route). Someone else set that one up (and had started this one) and while I did some cleanup on the other one, I'm going to beat every last bit of unnecessary shit out of this one. There were a few other systems that the other guy was going to leave in just in case we pick them up later, but I'm ditching them (we can always bring them back in from the original drawings we received).
What's great is that even though I like to complain about the garbage files I receive - I can slap on my headphones, crank up some death metal, and fix any stupid fucked up piece of shit that some moron sent me with ACAD. Nobody is going to build anything off of my drawings, so as long as I'm accurately representing what the people installing my systems need to see, then I've got a lot of leeway. Even if it takes the majority of a day to get it ready to go forward - I used to spend the majority of a day trying to get one stupid fucking thing to work in Revit (on an annoyingly regular basis) and that didn't guarantee I wouldn't actually be further into a fucking hole than when I started.
I was highly amused by a recent response to a post I did back in December of 2013 while I was still under the Revit bootheel. Some idiotic fucking glitch (that came out of nowhere) was making it to where I suddenly couldn't add light fixtures to a circuit. Apparently, despite multiple new releases of Revit since then, they were running into exactly the same issue. It seems like it was limited to one file (could have been one of the thousands and thousands of unnecessary settings - but both I and others went through it repeatedly with no success, leaving me having to fake it in).
But hey - at least they've got 'sketchy lines' now (oh, and the ability to make stuff in the foreground stand out better).
Fucking Fuckwits.
Fuck Autodesk, Fuck Revit, Fuck anyone forcing good, hardworking individuals into using Revit, and if you don't like it - GET FUCKED.
Sincerely,
S.F.
Next Time - I go after Motherfucking Microsoft Word (it will make more sense when you read it).
Friday, November 4, 2016
On Your Mark, Get Set, Achieve 'Real Speed-to-Market Success?'
Guten Tag Skullfriends!
I can't remember what I was doing the other day - but I ran across this 'design-build' company's website:
http://www.connectwithbutler.
Their incessant use of buzzwords/phrases ('employing collaborative upfront design', 'integrated 'project delivery', etc.) immediately made me think of the B.S. generator a reader had brought to my attention: http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html
Despite this, they actually make a few good points when it comes to how projects go from poorly thought out concept to horribly implemented design.
They start off with some 'Preliminary Questions to Consider':
1) Do you have the right decision makers at the table?
The answer to this question is almost always 'not only no - but fuck no'. The people you ARE guaranteed to have are 'The Dreamer' (who has grandiose ideas - but doesn't have any concept of things like budget, schedule, etc.), 'The Unrealist' (who really should know better - but still thinks that everything is going to be much cheaper than it demonstrably will be), 'The Dabbler' (who shouldn't fucking be there, but has inserted himself into the process, and if not carefully monitored, will throw the whole thing off course - also known as 'The Interloper'), and if you are really really lucky - you might get 'The Guy With The Purse Strings' (really the only guy you should ever actually pay attention to).
2) Are they a collaborative team that can work together seamlessly and simultaneously or are the linearly dependent following a step-by-step, on track path?
I'm assuming they meant 'are *they* linearly dependent' but were too busy cramming in buzzwords to worry about spelling/grammar. At any rate - it's almost a given in every case that people are going to be working simultaneously at both the design and construction level - the only 'step-by-step' you run into is when the aforementioned interlopers and other fuckups won't stop changing shit, causing the 'seamless' approach to turn into a long, drug out clusterfuck. Note - this happens regardless of how much work you do on the front end to prevent it.
3) Do your construction suppliers have the 'optimal value chain' to deliver a 'lean project cycle time' (whew)?
With any experienced firm, there is considerable attention paid to long lead-time items and coordinating their arrival on-site to where they won't hold up work (or be in the way/require storage). Again, this goes to shit due to the lack of understanding on the part of people who just will not stop fucking with the design WAY after the point where they needed to fuck right off.
I've been in so many meetings where people keep coming up with 'brilliant' ideas about how to 'improve' a design (typically with the aim of saving money) that get shot down once we force them to wrap their heads around 1) The fact that you can't just go pick up some of this shit at a Home Depot, and 2) The correct shit is already on-site (if not installed or in the process of being installed.
The assumption that you can swap out 'apples for apples' with different systems is another classic mistake. We regularly run into situations where there might only be one source for a device that will do what we need it to do. There might be other solutions, but they quickly become untenable due to the need for extra pieces/parts/etc. to interface a competitors devices with any given system.
The simplest solution is (almost) always best - but people want to layer on unnecessary bullshit to make themselves feel 'part of the project'. A firm can talk all day about how adept they are at coordinating a project - but I have yet to run across even a single one where one or more (if not all) of the people I described above to come crashing through at the most inopportune moment and drag a project off schedule.
I completed a massive warehouse/production facility a while back, and then we got the contract to do security equipment. No big deal - I knocked it out in short order, but we didn't receive a cad site plan - which was fortunate, because it turned out to have changed (and despite having requested it two weeks ago - the owner won't stop making changes for long enough for me to get it.
Hilariously, they keep operating under the delusion that the delivery date is still firm, even though they are the ones holding up our ability to complete it. That's pretty standard though - as is everyone's lack of willingness to confront yet another out of control client.
As always - if you stand in the way of my ability to do my goddamned job, you can take a long fucking hike to 'Gofuckyourselfville'.
Sinsquarely, SF
Next time: No Fucking Wonder This Shit Eats Itself
I can't remember what I was doing the other day - but I ran across this 'design-build' company's website:
http://www.connectwithbutler.
Their incessant use of buzzwords/phrases ('employing collaborative upfront design', 'integrated 'project delivery', etc.) immediately made me think of the B.S. generator a reader had brought to my attention: http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html
Despite this, they actually make a few good points when it comes to how projects go from poorly thought out concept to horribly implemented design.
They start off with some 'Preliminary Questions to Consider':
1) Do you have the right decision makers at the table?
The answer to this question is almost always 'not only no - but fuck no'. The people you ARE guaranteed to have are 'The Dreamer' (who has grandiose ideas - but doesn't have any concept of things like budget, schedule, etc.), 'The Unrealist' (who really should know better - but still thinks that everything is going to be much cheaper than it demonstrably will be), 'The Dabbler' (who shouldn't fucking be there, but has inserted himself into the process, and if not carefully monitored, will throw the whole thing off course - also known as 'The Interloper'), and if you are really really lucky - you might get 'The Guy With The Purse Strings' (really the only guy you should ever actually pay attention to).
2) Are they a collaborative team that can work together seamlessly and simultaneously or are the linearly dependent following a step-by-step, on track path?
I'm assuming they meant 'are *they* linearly dependent' but were too busy cramming in buzzwords to worry about spelling/grammar. At any rate - it's almost a given in every case that people are going to be working simultaneously at both the design and construction level - the only 'step-by-step' you run into is when the aforementioned interlopers and other fuckups won't stop changing shit, causing the 'seamless' approach to turn into a long, drug out clusterfuck. Note - this happens regardless of how much work you do on the front end to prevent it.
3) Do your construction suppliers have the 'optimal value chain' to deliver a 'lean project cycle time' (whew)?
With any experienced firm, there is considerable attention paid to long lead-time items and coordinating their arrival on-site to where they won't hold up work (or be in the way/require storage). Again, this goes to shit due to the lack of understanding on the part of people who just will not stop fucking with the design WAY after the point where they needed to fuck right off.
I've been in so many meetings where people keep coming up with 'brilliant' ideas about how to 'improve' a design (typically with the aim of saving money) that get shot down once we force them to wrap their heads around 1) The fact that you can't just go pick up some of this shit at a Home Depot, and 2) The correct shit is already on-site (if not installed or in the process of being installed.
The assumption that you can swap out 'apples for apples' with different systems is another classic mistake. We regularly run into situations where there might only be one source for a device that will do what we need it to do. There might be other solutions, but they quickly become untenable due to the need for extra pieces/parts/etc. to interface a competitors devices with any given system.
The simplest solution is (almost) always best - but people want to layer on unnecessary bullshit to make themselves feel 'part of the project'. A firm can talk all day about how adept they are at coordinating a project - but I have yet to run across even a single one where one or more (if not all) of the people I described above to come crashing through at the most inopportune moment and drag a project off schedule.
I completed a massive warehouse/production facility a while back, and then we got the contract to do security equipment. No big deal - I knocked it out in short order, but we didn't receive a cad site plan - which was fortunate, because it turned out to have changed (and despite having requested it two weeks ago - the owner won't stop making changes for long enough for me to get it.
Hilariously, they keep operating under the delusion that the delivery date is still firm, even though they are the ones holding up our ability to complete it. That's pretty standard though - as is everyone's lack of willingness to confront yet another out of control client.
As always - if you stand in the way of my ability to do my goddamned job, you can take a long fucking hike to 'Gofuckyourselfville'.
Sinsquarely, SF
Next time: No Fucking Wonder This Shit Eats Itself
Friday, October 7, 2016
WTF Windows 10?
Hola Skullfuckarinos!
Well, Autodesk didn't fucking do it - but Microsoft finally fucking did it (if they didn't do it goddamned conjunction).
They managed to break something in my perfectly functional ACAD 2014. It still works, but after they installed Windows 10 on my machine, it started making it to where I couldn't use the 'look in' pull down to change the target folder when using my .pdf printer. I had already had to remove .dwg to .pdf to keep from having it lock up, and hadn't been having any problems - until now, when the fucking thing decides to intermittently be blank and lock up when I use the 'look in' pulldown to try to change the folder I am in to open a file.
At first I thought it was just ACAD - but in Explorer (or any other program) the pull down is just blank (at least it doesn't fucking lock up the other programs). One suggested 'workaround' was to change the User Account Control Setting to 'Never Notify' and reboot (doesn't fucking work). I almost ended up losing work this morning (thank god for autosaves) when I had to crash out of it in Task Manager. Another suggestion was to reinstall, but supposedly the problem comes back eventually.
The fucked up thing is that I can still browse from the icons on the side - or just open files from explorer, but goddammit if I'm busy and need to open another file, forget, and use the pull down - I actually did lose some work the other day, and it's going to end up resulting in holes in walls if I can't figure out a way to make it fuck off.
Of course, I'm busy as fuck right now, and our IT guy is just going to give me some stock IT guy non-answer, so I'm going to have to just be extremely careful when I am working. I was going to leave it locked up when I went to lunch to see if it ever comes back, but of course - it magically decides to work perfectly (almost like it knows when it can fuck me).
Oh well - at least it's not Revit (it wouldn't surprise me if it locked up too - which takes five times as long to open a file back up). If anybody has any ideas I would love to hear them (I've already googled every variation on the problem I could think of). I'll post more if I figure it out (or if it gets worse).
Ciao!
-S.F.
Next Time: An Amusing Look At 'Achieving Real Speed-to-Market Success' with Butler Manufacturing.
Well, Autodesk didn't fucking do it - but Microsoft finally fucking did it (if they didn't do it goddamned conjunction).
They managed to break something in my perfectly functional ACAD 2014. It still works, but after they installed Windows 10 on my machine, it started making it to where I couldn't use the 'look in' pull down to change the target folder when using my .pdf printer. I had already had to remove .dwg to .pdf to keep from having it lock up, and hadn't been having any problems - until now, when the fucking thing decides to intermittently be blank and lock up when I use the 'look in' pulldown to try to change the folder I am in to open a file.
At first I thought it was just ACAD - but in Explorer (or any other program) the pull down is just blank (at least it doesn't fucking lock up the other programs). One suggested 'workaround' was to change the User Account Control Setting to 'Never Notify' and reboot (doesn't fucking work). I almost ended up losing work this morning (thank god for autosaves) when I had to crash out of it in Task Manager. Another suggestion was to reinstall, but supposedly the problem comes back eventually.
The fucked up thing is that I can still browse from the icons on the side - or just open files from explorer, but goddammit if I'm busy and need to open another file, forget, and use the pull down - I actually did lose some work the other day, and it's going to end up resulting in holes in walls if I can't figure out a way to make it fuck off.
Of course, I'm busy as fuck right now, and our IT guy is just going to give me some stock IT guy non-answer, so I'm going to have to just be extremely careful when I am working. I was going to leave it locked up when I went to lunch to see if it ever comes back, but of course - it magically decides to work perfectly (almost like it knows when it can fuck me).
Oh well - at least it's not Revit (it wouldn't surprise me if it locked up too - which takes five times as long to open a file back up). If anybody has any ideas I would love to hear them (I've already googled every variation on the problem I could think of). I'll post more if I figure it out (or if it gets worse).
Ciao!
-S.F.
Next Time: An Amusing Look At 'Achieving Real Speed-to-Market Success' with Butler Manufacturing.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
SuBMiSSioN DoMiNaTioN
Sup?
So that last post got me thinking - other than a few emergency situations (always as a result of other people's poor planning) after a certain point there was never any necessity for anyone to manually sign/seal drawings other than one hold out (New Jersey - if I recall correctly that still required a raised seal), andsome jurisdictions that required a wet stamp/signature (to make sure that the drawings had actually been in front of an Architect/Engineer at least once).
Florida was the other raised seal hold-out, but even they got a regular stamp seal a few years back. Since the Electrical Engineer I used to work for thought that iPads (which many of the Architects and other Engineers used to sign - and in some cases - review and markup their drawings) were fucking retarded, the process was to put the necessary stamp on a piece of paper, have him sign/date, scan it in and then slap it on the drawings (ACAD/Revit, or directly on the. pdf).
It was a little bit tedious, especially if people kept changing the date (typically due to Revit related delays, or pure incompetence), but it beat plotting out the drawings and stamping each one for him to sign. Regardless, the final result still usually ended up being a hardcopy submittal - and the main reason for this is that whoever was reviewing it didn't have to worry about having the correct software, file format, file size, etc. in order to view it.
The thing is, electronic files can be manipulated, older versions can accidentally end up getting used (or overwriting newer versions), and you can't always rely on someone to grab the correct ones from their e-mail, dropbox, website, server, etc. I've seen pdfs get submitted that were total shit - even if you opened and looked at them, you wouldn't notice missing information or other glaring mistakes - but holy shit when you print them out and look at them full-size (or even half-size).
Now I get it, the dream is to design, review, submit, receive approval, then fabricate/construct/install - all from an electronic file (a model specifically), but even aside from dragging the necessary people/jurisdictions/departments kicking and screaming into 'the future', that hardcopy represents something that no electronic file ever will.
In the last week I've submitted two separate projects - one that required an Engineer (from another company that we share a building with) to sign/seal, and one that did not. Both required hardcopies - the first had to be shipped to the State Board of Health, the second I hand delivered to the County Fire Marshall in the City/County building downtown.
Another project was completed and uploaded to the City for their review - but damned if their website wasn't fucked up and wouldn't allow me to create a folder to upload the files. When I called to ask if they were having a problem, they said they had received other submittals (meaning the problem was most likely on our end - possibly related to the website requiring an older version of IE for it to work properly).
My wife (a college English teacher) had run into the same problem with some State school websites that (like the City's website) appear to have been written by a five year old and are hopelessly tied to some functionality that has long been defunct and removed from newer browsers. Fortunately the guy who I was sending the files to was able to generate the necessary folder and I was able to upload the project (but, of course, this meant that two other projects has taken precedence).
The point is that a physical copy of a project is a snapshot in time - it requires that all dicking around cease in order to put together something that someone can hold in their hands. It can be unrolled, anywhere, without the need for software, any kind of electronic device (or even electricity). Once signed/sealed it becomes an official document.
In the future, it won't matter if the software to read the file exists (think government agencies that have to keep ancient systems limping along in order to continue to read files in hopelessly outdated formats), or the data gets corrupted (unbeknownst to most people - data degrades over time, regardless of how it is saved). Fuck, a Revit file could barely keep from getting corrupted several times while the project was being worked on.
Listening to Revitards opine that they can't just model something and hand it off (most likely incomplete, inaccurate, and nigh impossible to actually see anything) is hilarious. They seem to view the process of getting usable documentation out of their model as some kind of massive inconvenience ('Just look at the model!'). I'm sure they have beaten (or will beat) a few 'forward thinking' jurisdictions/AHJ's into starting to accept the model as part (if not the whole) submittal, but they are going to face massive push back by people that can very easily hold up construction.
It has less to do with forcing people to do things a new way, and more to do with the 'new way' being a fucking smokescreen - and people who haven't plugged themselves into the Revit hive-mind can see it plain as day. One thing that you see come up time and again (and that several commenters have mentioned) is the matter of who takes on liability when a project goes 'less than swimmingly'.
Just like having solid, well-written contracts prevents a firm from getting it in the nuts when things go FUBAR, a well-engineered (or architected) set of drawings that you can whip out and see directly in front of you can prevent you from having those nuts sliced directly off and stuffed in your mouth. This is also right about the same time most people go into panic mode, and it's really easy for someone to be tempted to tweak a digital file to try to cover their ass (seen it happen - more than once).
Obviously if the fuckup is right there in black-and-white, it can be just as damaging - but that's kind of the point. If nobody ever actually looked at the drawings, and just gave some .pdfs the same glassy-eyed stare that monitors/tablets/phones tend to invoke in people, then it's nobodies fault but their own.
Fuck 'em.
Sincesquarely,
S.F.
Next Time: What the Fuck Windows 10?
The point is that a physical copy of a project is a snapshot in time - it requires that all dicking around cease in order to put together something that someone can hold in their hands. It can be unrolled, anywhere, without the need for software, any kind of electronic device (or even electricity). Once signed/sealed it becomes an official document.
In the future, it won't matter if the software to read the file exists (think government agencies that have to keep ancient systems limping along in order to continue to read files in hopelessly outdated formats), or the data gets corrupted (unbeknownst to most people - data degrades over time, regardless of how it is saved). Fuck, a Revit file could barely keep from getting corrupted several times while the project was being worked on.
Listening to Revitards opine that they can't just model something and hand it off (most likely incomplete, inaccurate, and nigh impossible to actually see anything) is hilarious. They seem to view the process of getting usable documentation out of their model as some kind of massive inconvenience ('Just look at the model!'). I'm sure they have beaten (or will beat) a few 'forward thinking' jurisdictions/AHJ's into starting to accept the model as part (if not the whole) submittal, but they are going to face massive push back by people that can very easily hold up construction.
It has less to do with forcing people to do things a new way, and more to do with the 'new way' being a fucking smokescreen - and people who haven't plugged themselves into the Revit hive-mind can see it plain as day. One thing that you see come up time and again (and that several commenters have mentioned) is the matter of who takes on liability when a project goes 'less than swimmingly'.
Just like having solid, well-written contracts prevents a firm from getting it in the nuts when things go FUBAR, a well-engineered (or architected) set of drawings that you can whip out and see directly in front of you can prevent you from having those nuts sliced directly off and stuffed in your mouth. This is also right about the same time most people go into panic mode, and it's really easy for someone to be tempted to tweak a digital file to try to cover their ass (seen it happen - more than once).
Obviously if the fuckup is right there in black-and-white, it can be just as damaging - but that's kind of the point. If nobody ever actually looked at the drawings, and just gave some .pdfs the same glassy-eyed stare that monitors/tablets/phones tend to invoke in people, then it's nobodies fault but their own.
Fuck 'em.
Sincesquarely,
S.F.
Next Time: What the Fuck Windows 10?
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
'When Will BIM be Accepted as a Building Permit and Construction Document?' or 'Craig Rice is a Whiny Revit Faggot Who Needs To Go Fuck Himself'
Greetings Skullfuckheads!
It's always amusing to read about the exploits of dickless Revitards and their never-ending quest to hate-fuck any system that doesn't involve their precious BIM into pieces.
This little gem comes compliments of SF reader 'Hysteresis':
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-bim-accepted-building-permit-construction-document-craig-rice
It regales us all with the thrilling tale of a Reviteering BIMtard Architect and his quest to get a few pieces of paper signed on a hot day in San Francisco (hey, same initials as Skull Fuck' - coincidence?).
He (and a handful of his commenters) are looking forward to the day they can just pawn off their shitty BIM model to get permits instead of being forced to put their garbage design into a reviewable format.
While seeing hundreds and hundreds of projects through from vague concept to completed building (and beyond) - I have watched people attempt to take every possible shortcut, skip every seemingly 'unnecessary' step, and try to slip poorly designed and incomplete sets of drawings past AHJs.
What these people have convinced themselves, is that as 'Professionals' (using that term in the loosest possible context), they should be the ones to dictate how this process is implemented. You will notice this is the same mentality that causes most problems.
While an individual may (or may not) be qualified to do their job, it is always necessary to get an unbiased (or better yet - biased somewhat against) them to give their project a thorough review without pulling any punches - forcing that individual to have to defend their design or concede and make necessary changes.
Step #1 towards having this work effectively is is not expecting to be able to set the standards and parameters that your work will be judged by. Switching formats from drawings to a BIM model is absolutely an example of attempting to control the narrative.
Also - what other people have found out (as I've mentioned in the past) is that once you convince a bureaucracy to change to your favorite way of doing things - there's an unexpected twist. They are typically going to go further than you expected - which will end up resulting in considerably more work for you (for dubious gain).
They will develop their own standard for what is required for a BIM submittal, and while I'm sure Mr Rice here would love to be involved with helping them develop those standards, his competitors are going to be trying to figure out a way to do so as well (in order to give themselves an edge).
But yeah - he wouldn't have to go sign drawings in the hoods of cars anymore. 'Yay!'
Fuck this self-absorbed piece of shit Revitard BIMfucker, fuck Revit, fuck Autodesk, and if you don't like it FUCK YOU!!!
-SKuLLFuCK
Next Time: Submission Domination
It's always amusing to read about the exploits of dickless Revitards and their never-ending quest to hate-fuck any system that doesn't involve their precious BIM into pieces.
This little gem comes compliments of SF reader 'Hysteresis':
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-bim-accepted-building-permit-construction-document-craig-rice
It regales us all with the thrilling tale of a Reviteering BIMtard Architect and his quest to get a few pieces of paper signed on a hot day in San Francisco (hey, same initials as Skull Fuck' - coincidence?).
He (and a handful of his commenters) are looking forward to the day they can just pawn off their shitty BIM model to get permits instead of being forced to put their garbage design into a reviewable format.
While seeing hundreds and hundreds of projects through from vague concept to completed building (and beyond) - I have watched people attempt to take every possible shortcut, skip every seemingly 'unnecessary' step, and try to slip poorly designed and incomplete sets of drawings past AHJs.
What these people have convinced themselves, is that as 'Professionals' (using that term in the loosest possible context), they should be the ones to dictate how this process is implemented. You will notice this is the same mentality that causes most problems.
While an individual may (or may not) be qualified to do their job, it is always necessary to get an unbiased (or better yet - biased somewhat against) them to give their project a thorough review without pulling any punches - forcing that individual to have to defend their design or concede and make necessary changes.
Step #1 towards having this work effectively is is not expecting to be able to set the standards and parameters that your work will be judged by. Switching formats from drawings to a BIM model is absolutely an example of attempting to control the narrative.
Also - what other people have found out (as I've mentioned in the past) is that once you convince a bureaucracy to change to your favorite way of doing things - there's an unexpected twist. They are typically going to go further than you expected - which will end up resulting in considerably more work for you (for dubious gain).
They will develop their own standard for what is required for a BIM submittal, and while I'm sure Mr Rice here would love to be involved with helping them develop those standards, his competitors are going to be trying to figure out a way to do so as well (in order to give themselves an edge).
But yeah - he wouldn't have to go sign drawings in the hoods of cars anymore. 'Yay!'
Fuck this self-absorbed piece of shit Revitard BIMfucker, fuck Revit, fuck Autodesk, and if you don't like it FUCK YOU!!!
-SKuLLFuCK
Next Time: Submission Domination
Monday, August 22, 2016
Autocad 2017 - The Ribboning
Donde Esta El Skullfuck?
It's been busy busy here, we've got projects coming in the door like crazy - and I've got the tools to do the job. The only problem I've been running into is the occasional client who doesn't know what the fuck they want (typical), or the ones that know exactly what they want (but don't know how to communicate it).
I banged out a massive 700,000 s.f. warehouse/production facility, then spent twice as long designing (what should have been) a fairly simple access control system. The guy who sold the job was operating under the delusion that I knew what his client wanted (via telepathy apparently).
Meanwhile, the client couldn't keep anything straight, but instead of figuring it out first then going forward, they had me over-design everything to the nth degree before then going back through the resulting clusterfuck and tweak it to their liking (we are making a pile of money though).
Then it was on to a 180,000 s.f. media production facility upgrade - which I was completely done with when the client started poking around in it and making vague requests (with very specific expectations).
I thought I had him squared away, but then he came back claiming we hadn't sent him updated drawings (we had), and then when we re-sent them, he claimed we hadn't addressed his comments. Fortunately the client was nearby our office, so we had a quick meeting with him this morning.
It turned out that we had indeed done pretty much everything he wanted - and just had to make a few corrections to the floor plan layout (the one they sent us to go by mind you). We actually removed two devices that were excess to need, and then talked him out of moving some conduits.
I got those drawings submitted, then it was on to finishing up a 64,000 s.f. office building (inside of a government facility - so, of course, it's not going to be as simple as it should be), and we've got 3-4 more projects ready to go after that (with more to come).
I'm all for it because the day goes by faster (and thanks to some overtime - it makes my paycheck grow substantially). It will also be nice to have a stack of large-scale projects under my belt when I come up for review (I had to take a little pay cut to come here, and I'm hoping to make it up).
Most important though is having the right tools - and even better than not being force-fed the newest version of Revit every year at my new job has been the fact that (while we have access to newer CAD) we are still ticking along perfectly happy in ACAD 2014.
I might eventually skip up to 2016 like I had at my previous job (fuck 2015 - piece of shit), but since I'm pretty sure these are stand-alone copies (rather than the subscription based license bullshit) I doubt I will worry about it for a while.
A quick review of 2017 seemed to show that they are doubling down on this ribbon bullshit - to the point of eliminating the 'classic view' altogether - although it can easily be 'recreated'. This begs the question of why the fuck they wouldn't just leave it alone (unless they are just trying to drag the last few people kicking and screaming into ribbonland).
Fortunately, as long as they leave the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) the fuck alone, I'm golden. The only other feature (there didn't seem to be a whole lot - but it's hard to improve on perfection) that I saw was built-in .pdf import, which would come in handy from time to time (assuming I get .pdfs that aren't scans of old drawings, etc. that import as nigh unusable bullshit (which is most of them).
I'm sure they probably broke some important shit (it wouldn't be an 'update' otherwise), but for now the only changes I have had to put up with here was when they put Windows 10 on our machines - fortunately the only problem I had with it (so far) was one of my printer drivers (other people haven't been so lucky).
Fuck Revit, Fuck Reviteers, Yadda Yadda. Fuck you if you don't like it, etc. etc.
-Skullfuck.
Next Time: BIM idiot opines not being able to use his shitty model as a deliverable (hat tip to SF Reader 'Hysteresis').
It's been busy busy here, we've got projects coming in the door like crazy - and I've got the tools to do the job. The only problem I've been running into is the occasional client who doesn't know what the fuck they want (typical), or the ones that know exactly what they want (but don't know how to communicate it).
I banged out a massive 700,000 s.f. warehouse/production facility, then spent twice as long designing (what should have been) a fairly simple access control system. The guy who sold the job was operating under the delusion that I knew what his client wanted (via telepathy apparently).
Meanwhile, the client couldn't keep anything straight, but instead of figuring it out first then going forward, they had me over-design everything to the nth degree before then going back through the resulting clusterfuck and tweak it to their liking (we are making a pile of money though).
Then it was on to a 180,000 s.f. media production facility upgrade - which I was completely done with when the client started poking around in it and making vague requests (with very specific expectations).
I thought I had him squared away, but then he came back claiming we hadn't sent him updated drawings (we had), and then when we re-sent them, he claimed we hadn't addressed his comments. Fortunately the client was nearby our office, so we had a quick meeting with him this morning.
It turned out that we had indeed done pretty much everything he wanted - and just had to make a few corrections to the floor plan layout (the one they sent us to go by mind you). We actually removed two devices that were excess to need, and then talked him out of moving some conduits.
I got those drawings submitted, then it was on to finishing up a 64,000 s.f. office building (inside of a government facility - so, of course, it's not going to be as simple as it should be), and we've got 3-4 more projects ready to go after that (with more to come).
I'm all for it because the day goes by faster (and thanks to some overtime - it makes my paycheck grow substantially). It will also be nice to have a stack of large-scale projects under my belt when I come up for review (I had to take a little pay cut to come here, and I'm hoping to make it up).
Most important though is having the right tools - and even better than not being force-fed the newest version of Revit every year at my new job has been the fact that (while we have access to newer CAD) we are still ticking along perfectly happy in ACAD 2014.
I might eventually skip up to 2016 like I had at my previous job (fuck 2015 - piece of shit), but since I'm pretty sure these are stand-alone copies (rather than the subscription based license bullshit) I doubt I will worry about it for a while.
A quick review of 2017 seemed to show that they are doubling down on this ribbon bullshit - to the point of eliminating the 'classic view' altogether - although it can easily be 'recreated'. This begs the question of why the fuck they wouldn't just leave it alone (unless they are just trying to drag the last few people kicking and screaming into ribbonland).
Fortunately, as long as they leave the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) the fuck alone, I'm golden. The only other feature (there didn't seem to be a whole lot - but it's hard to improve on perfection) that I saw was built-in .pdf import, which would come in handy from time to time (assuming I get .pdfs that aren't scans of old drawings, etc. that import as nigh unusable bullshit (which is most of them).
I'm sure they probably broke some important shit (it wouldn't be an 'update' otherwise), but for now the only changes I have had to put up with here was when they put Windows 10 on our machines - fortunately the only problem I had with it (so far) was one of my printer drivers (other people haven't been so lucky).
Fuck Revit, Fuck Reviteers, Yadda Yadda. Fuck you if you don't like it, etc. etc.
-Skullfuck.
Next Time: BIM idiot opines not being able to use his shitty model as a deliverable (hat tip to SF Reader 'Hysteresis').
Thursday, July 14, 2016
When A Plan Comes Together.
"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence"
-Charles Bukowski
Still not a Revit cloud in my blue sky - and no BIM turds in my coffee. I even managed to work the kinks out of my VESDA system design after a short phone conversation with an 'Aspire 2' guru (see: Another Software Package Sucks Dick). Unbeknownst to me, you could actually override the sample point hole sizes to be any size you wanted. The default had me going between 1/8" (too big) and 5/32" (too small), but 7/32" was just right.
He was impressed that (without any training) I had been able to wing it and design a complete system. He recommended changing one other setting first, and then after updating the hole sizes (changing it once changed it globally - including adding holes to end caps where I didn't need them, but that only took a few seconds to fix) the system calculations came up perfectly (without any need for modifying the reports it spit out - which may have eventually run me into problems).
We discussed a few features that I thought were lacking in the software (which were apparently addressed in a later release), including not having an 'undo' button, and the inability to zoom in on a 3D Parametric (as the system gets larger, the view gets smaller - ironically still easier to see what is going on than in Revit). We had a short conversation about Revit afterwards - which he considered, in his experience, to be 'in it's infancy', especially where it related to his industry.
Since I am waiting for CAD files on two separate projects (both of which I'm sure are going to become 'emergencies' despite nobody being bothered to give a fuck about getting me what I need to do them), I finished going through the last box of 'as-built' drawings that had been piling up prior to my starting at the firm, and with perfect timing, drawings of a truck maintenance facility popped up in my inbox.
It took me a few minutes to get it set up (and I'm still making some tweaks). I'm not sure what software the background originated in - but apparently the engineering drawings were done in 'Bluebeam' (which I remember a SkullFuck commenter mentioning one time). I haven't had any experience with this software, so I can't really comment on it, but the CAD file I received was more than a little fucked up.
I'm willing to give Bluebeam the benefit of the doubt - since you can't really control how people use your software (unless you are Autodesk, and you put your boot on the neck of designers and force them to do it 'The Revit Way (tm)"). The first thing I noticed was that everything was piled onto one plan in model space and then different layers turned on/off in various paperspace views).
It was also assembled from several blocks (possibly xrefs that got bound) for background, equipment, etc. - and after spending some time cleaning it up, and noticed that they even had stuff from different levels piled up on top of each other (i.e. devices that were on a mezzanine could be mistaken for being on the first floor unless you went and looked at the paperspace views).
Then I started to notice a number of items (devices at first, but then I started to notice furniture) that were rotated ever so slightly - and in many (if not most) cases they appeared to have just been slapped on the drawings wherever, but I had already decided to replace all of the device blocks with my standard ones (and use my template system that I developed to guarantee full coverage).
I was even seeing some walls with little jogs indicating that they were rotated a fraction of a degree - I was starting to worry that the whole stupid building was rotated a fraction of a degree (sometimes an indication that someone has imported a file incorrectly - or attempted to convert a .pdf to CAD), but they seemed to be a fairly limited and easy to fix.
Little stuff like those jogs always catch my eye - and make it hard for me to concentrate. I almost envy people who can just ignore things like that, but the fact is, my attention to detail is a big part of what makes me a good designer. More than once I have found issues while working a floor plan over, brought them to someone's attention, and damned if they didn't end up making a difference in the design.
When I was at my old firm and everyone was working in ACAD, it was always fairly simple to point out something that was inconsistent, have them acknowledge it, and fix it. Most of the time they would even thank me for catching it (it was a team effort after all, anything that made their drawings better made them look better, the firm look better, and resulted in less revisions down the road).
Enter Revit, and motherfucker if I wouldn't do exactly the same thing (the fact that I was exporting their plans out to CAD and scrubbing the shit out of them meant I would see things they wouldn't), and their initial reaction was always to deny that anything was wrong. Of course, I would always go back into Revit and double-check it before I brought it to their attention.
I'm sure some of this was due to them having battled the Revit monster, and not wanting to have to go back in and figure out what they (or it) had fucked up, and I obviously can't blame them for that, but I also wasn't the one touting it as 'the best shiznit in the history of shiznit'. After I moved them past denial, their next defense mechanism was to claim that it was one of the quarter of a million settings that was making it 'appear' to be wrong.
After four hours of clicking on every button on the ribbon, every button on every context-sensitive ribbon, every button on every menu, changing every view range setting in every field in every menu, and involving six other Reviteers/Gurus/etc. - damn, look at that, the problem is that you've got a column running right through the middle of the door into the sprinkler room, there isn't enough room in the wall on either side of it to make it fit, and it's the only wall that it can go in.
Just like I told you.
Now, keep in mind, I wasn't (usually) being a dick about this, and would always preface my findings with verbage that indicated that I wasn't there to tell them how to do their job, or pretend like I knew more than they did - but after watching them do the Revit two-step buttfuck shuffle to try to prove me wrong (or get out of trying to fix something), I never hesitated to throw it in their face.
What's amusing is that none of what I do when it comes to tweaking these plans actually takes a noticeable amount of time. As I dig into a new project, going through and cleaning up the plans doubles as a chance to get familiar with the project, often finding out that there are discrepancies in the scope (like if there is an elevator, but nobody took the necessary equipment for our systems to interface with it into account when they bid the job), sprinkler systems, fire pumps, etc.
My mind immediately starts to go to work calculating, figuring out how I am going to group equipment and run circuits (and keep those runs as short as possible), identify where additional equipment may be necessary to support those circuits (or where devices are missing - like in the case of the apartment complex I did a while back that was missing literally hundreds of devices due to a careless electrical designer/engineer not taking the time to review their typical plans).
When my software works with/for me instead of against me - then I can accomplish anything. On it's best day, Revit had so much distracting bullshit pulling me out of my zone that I would literally just end up staring at it (not unlike many others that I would see just orbiting their model instead of working) or fucking off and doing something else.
It wasn't until I would say 'fuck this' and kick it out into ACAD, and the process of cleaning it up would blend seamlessly into laying it out, solving all of the problems, and completing the project.
That, my friends, is the sweet spot. One that most Revit users don't know exists, because if they did, they would tell Autodesk to go fuck itself.
Which, by the way, Autodesk can absolutely go fuck itself. Revit can absolutely go fuck itself. And anyone willfully using, selling, promoting, 'developing' or otherwise involved with Revit - can absolutely go fuck themselves.
And stay SkullFucked.
-S.F.
Next Time: I pick a random topic and go off.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
BIM Scrubbing
Greetings and Salutations from outside the Revitsphere!
It's another warm sunny day - with no Revit being forced into all of my orifices and ocular cavities.
I received another project consisting of laughable construction documents - and was especially amused to see that they had included several sheets dedicated to various 3D views.
I had seen a number of firms include an overall 3D view on their cover sheet - but this was the first time I had seen one dedicate space to showing off their model.
It makes sense from their perspective (pun intended) since they have gone through the trouble of fully detailing out a model - which you almost wouldn't know if you just looked at the 2D plans and elevations (and then wondered to yourself why those plans and elevations looked like excrement).
There are even cases where it might be helpful for a contractor to be able to see what something is intended to look like before finding out that the details are shown incorrectly because there wasn't enough time to check them thoroughly.
To an untrained eye, this seems much more helpful than it actually is - since 2D details (with accurate dimensions and other information) are what a contractor will be looking at after they staple or clip the unnecessary sheets together so they aren't constantly having to flip through several extra pages of useless details.
I could see an owner or other person not directly involved with construction (that doesn't know how to read a set of plans) finding 3D views to be helpful in visualizing the finished project - but in reality it just pads out the set, meaning more sheets to keep up with (almost none of which are going to be of any use to the AHJ's reviewing and approving them).
Combine that with the fact that making changes in Revit often results in unexpected dumbfuckery - and now you have even more views you have to doublecheck to prevent sending out idiotic looking drawings (not that most Reviteers seem to give a fuck).
It's been two days since they sent us a more or less useless .PDF set and we requested CAD drawings (thank fucking god we don't have to request the massive clusterfuck of a Revit model), so I've been catching up on some 'As-Builts' - including a fairly decent sized library.
As soon as I opened the drawing I knew it had a background that originated in Revit, and whoever had set it up originally hadn't bothered to give it a thorough 'BIM Scrubbing' (my take on the derisive term 'BIM Washing' that Reviteers use for anyone 'faking it' in Revit).
'BIM Scrubbing' starts with getting rid of the pointlessly elaborate 3D models that some moron got from a manufacturer or Revit circlejerk website. What looks really slick in 3D (to cover up the fact that your design is shit) turns a 2D view into total garbage.
Obviously a 'properly' designed family should include both a 3D model AND a 2D symbol to allow you to keep it turned on (and even have options to have it show up differently based on how much detail you want in a given view) but this is lost on many users and content developers, and so I end up with an exported CAD drawing with chairs that have meticulously crafted casters, legs, seats, backs, brackets, adjustment levers (and in the case of some of the chairs on this project - adjustable cup holders and desk surfaces) that end up looking like black blobs and obscure anything nearby.
Some people just turn off furniture altogether - but then you run into problems with what you need to see to coordinate various systems with the way the space is intended to be used - so I start by tracing an outline (using arcs for what started off as hundreds of lines approximating a curve - often with several overlapping lines) to a final shape consisting of 2-3 dozen lines instead of quite literally tens of thousands of line segments (multiplied by how many instances there are in the drawing).
I could see an owner or other person not directly involved with construction (that doesn't know how to read a set of plans) finding 3D views to be helpful in visualizing the finished project - but in reality it just pads out the set, meaning more sheets to keep up with (almost none of which are going to be of any use to the AHJ's reviewing and approving them).
Combine that with the fact that making changes in Revit often results in unexpected dumbfuckery - and now you have even more views you have to doublecheck to prevent sending out idiotic looking drawings (not that most Reviteers seem to give a fuck).
It's been two days since they sent us a more or less useless .PDF set and we requested CAD drawings (thank fucking god we don't have to request the massive clusterfuck of a Revit model), so I've been catching up on some 'As-Builts' - including a fairly decent sized library.
As soon as I opened the drawing I knew it had a background that originated in Revit, and whoever had set it up originally hadn't bothered to give it a thorough 'BIM Scrubbing' (my take on the derisive term 'BIM Washing' that Reviteers use for anyone 'faking it' in Revit).
'BIM Scrubbing' starts with getting rid of the pointlessly elaborate 3D models that some moron got from a manufacturer or Revit circlejerk website. What looks really slick in 3D (to cover up the fact that your design is shit) turns a 2D view into total garbage.
Obviously a 'properly' designed family should include both a 3D model AND a 2D symbol to allow you to keep it turned on (and even have options to have it show up differently based on how much detail you want in a given view) but this is lost on many users and content developers, and so I end up with an exported CAD drawing with chairs that have meticulously crafted casters, legs, seats, backs, brackets, adjustment levers (and in the case of some of the chairs on this project - adjustable cup holders and desk surfaces) that end up looking like black blobs and obscure anything nearby.
Some people just turn off furniture altogether - but then you run into problems with what you need to see to coordinate various systems with the way the space is intended to be used - so I start by tracing an outline (using arcs for what started off as hundreds of lines approximating a curve - often with several overlapping lines) to a final shape consisting of 2-3 dozen lines instead of quite literally tens of thousands of line segments (multiplied by how many instances there are in the drawing).
Once the blobs of crap are cleaned up, I turn to cleaning up walls, doorways, etc. - which even the most skilled of Revit Gurus seem to have trouble convincing to show up correctly (much less the average Reviteer).
I'm obsessed with keeping doorways and other openings clean and devoid of unnecessary lines showing walls above - I've seen a number of Architectural CD's where designers failed to notice that various openings into rooms/corridors were completely obscured.
The clarity that a well-designed piece of software like ACAD gives you when zoomed in shows numerous flaws in Revit models that you would never notice - unintentional overlaps, door frames in wall sections too small to accomodate them, and equipment, racks, etc. that are going to require extensive field modification to fit in the spaces allotted.
These oversights often negate the major selling point of Revit - it's ability to do 'collision detection' between disciplines. If there are major (or even minor) flaws in a model that claims to be the 'gospel' you end up out in the field trying to pack an air handling unit, panel, etc. into a space that only looked sufficient because part of it extended through a wall.
Anyway, after thoroughly scrubbing the background (including exploding blocks, homogenizing layers, colors, line types, etc.), and eliminating any other unnecessary, redundant, or otherwise confusing linework, I have a file that is smaller, opens/saves faster, crashes almost never, and most importantly of all - looks fantastic, while clearly and accurately conveying the necessary information to construct the project.
Fortunately I had extensive experience at my last job cleaning up Revit nonsense. The end result is a much clearer set of drawings that allow me to design without distraction, and eliminates any ambiguity as to how my systems are to be installed. At the end of the day, my drawings are (and always have been) partially schematical (with contractors/installers being tasked with 'means and methods'), which allows me to convey information much more thoroughly.
I take a lot of pride in my work - and I'll be damned if anyone (or anything) is going to stand between me and my ability to complete it to my exacting standards.
As always - fuck this stupid fucking Revit shit. (And if you don't like it - fuck your stupid fucking shit too).
-SKULLfuck.
Next time: I finally figure out wtf is wrong with that goddamned piece of software I had to circumvent!
I'm obsessed with keeping doorways and other openings clean and devoid of unnecessary lines showing walls above - I've seen a number of Architectural CD's where designers failed to notice that various openings into rooms/corridors were completely obscured.
The clarity that a well-designed piece of software like ACAD gives you when zoomed in shows numerous flaws in Revit models that you would never notice - unintentional overlaps, door frames in wall sections too small to accomodate them, and equipment, racks, etc. that are going to require extensive field modification to fit in the spaces allotted.
These oversights often negate the major selling point of Revit - it's ability to do 'collision detection' between disciplines. If there are major (or even minor) flaws in a model that claims to be the 'gospel' you end up out in the field trying to pack an air handling unit, panel, etc. into a space that only looked sufficient because part of it extended through a wall.
Anyway, after thoroughly scrubbing the background (including exploding blocks, homogenizing layers, colors, line types, etc.), and eliminating any other unnecessary, redundant, or otherwise confusing linework, I have a file that is smaller, opens/saves faster, crashes almost never, and most importantly of all - looks fantastic, while clearly and accurately conveying the necessary information to construct the project.
Fortunately I had extensive experience at my last job cleaning up Revit nonsense. The end result is a much clearer set of drawings that allow me to design without distraction, and eliminates any ambiguity as to how my systems are to be installed. At the end of the day, my drawings are (and always have been) partially schematical (with contractors/installers being tasked with 'means and methods'), which allows me to convey information much more thoroughly.
I take a lot of pride in my work - and I'll be damned if anyone (or anything) is going to stand between me and my ability to complete it to my exacting standards.
As always - fuck this stupid fucking Revit shit. (And if you don't like it - fuck your stupid fucking shit too).
-SKULLfuck.
Next time: I finally figure out wtf is wrong with that goddamned piece of software I had to circumvent!
Friday, July 1, 2016
The Episode Where Skullfuck Runs Out Of Revit Shit To Bitch About
All right ladies and gents - as I've been alluding to, not using Revit (ever) has had an undeniable positive effect on my general well-being (most notably my knuckles not bleeding from punching brick walls on a daily basis).
Obviously my disgust with all things Revit will always remain - but not even the childish scribblings that I receive from architectural/engineering firms to use as backgrounds for my design work have been able to cause me nearly enough angst to perpetuate it.
So - without further ado, I'm going to bitch about the latest piece of hackneyed technology to foist itself, not just on the design industry, but indeed - on the public at large, and that is the 'Autopilot' feature of some new cars.
I was just reading this morning about the fatal crash of a Tesla Model S - which is an absolute marvel of modern technology (up to, and including the 'Autopilot' feature), and with no disrespect to the individual who was killed in this wreck, HOW IN THE FUCK DO YOU LET YOUR FUCKING CAR DRIVE ITSELF INTO A GODDAMNED SEMI-TRACTOR TRAILER?!?!?!
Apparently this guy had made several videos showing him allowing his car to drive 'hands off' - including one where the car actually did avoid a close call - that he could've most likely avoided himself if he had been driving the car instead of making a video.
I don't know what he was doing when the wreck occurred (although if we're going to have people engaging autopilot so they can get fully immersed in the cell-phone experience during their morning commute instead of having to glance up every once in a while to avoid hitting other cars/people/immovable object - we might want to consider requiring that a 'black box' and camera system be installed in every car with this feature so that after a wreck we can see exactly how distracted they were when they trusted a computer to do their driving for them), but it wouldn't surprise me if he had been filming another video.
The car supposedly didn't see a white trailer against a white background (and the height of the trailer prevented it from seeing it with it's radar - although it seems like you would want to calibrate that shit to make it see anything that might hit the car - not just something you might hit with the bumper). I've heard some bullshit claims that a person wouldn't have been able to see it either - forgetting that people have the ability to see motion and not just differentiate between the sky and MASSIVE FUCKING TRUCKS.
In Tesla's defense - this feature requires the user to press 'accept' on a message warning them that they are still supposed to keep their hands on the wheel when engaging it, but like most messages, people just accept without reading (thus, the proliferation of malware, viruses, etc. on computers). Despite this warning, it's obvious that people are going to push the envelope of how much they trust the car to take over 'for just a second', which will quickly end up being 'a few more seconds', then 'interminable amount of time since I was actually engaged in the act of driving'.
Oh - and for just a second let me touch on all of the fucking shit car manufacturers have been loading up car dashboards with. It's fucking awesome that a modern car's dashboard can look like the 'Starship Fucking Enterprise', but I hold that there is 100% too much shit to distract 'drivers' (using that word in the loosest possible terms since most people can barely steer a car, much less drive one - which might sound like an argument for self-driving cars, but should be taken as 'some people should be required to take driving classes or not be allowed on the road').
It's fucking amazing that you can even see out of one of these cars at night with all of the glowing screens, LED's, etc. - and I've watched people fucking with touchscreens (like the massive one on the Tesla) and be so distracted that they might as well have been texting on their phone.
Anyway - in my humble opinion the dream of a self-driving car is still a long ways off. Instead of waxing poetic about the day when they can drink their latte, text, and masturbate during their commute, they need to be learning how the fuck to drive - oh, and get the fuck out of the fast lane if you are just going to drive the same speed as the car next to you moron.
-Skullfucked And Out Of Ideas.
Next Time: I continue to bitch about random shit unless someone has something Revit related they want me to address.
Obviously my disgust with all things Revit will always remain - but not even the childish scribblings that I receive from architectural/engineering firms to use as backgrounds for my design work have been able to cause me nearly enough angst to perpetuate it.
So - without further ado, I'm going to bitch about the latest piece of hackneyed technology to foist itself, not just on the design industry, but indeed - on the public at large, and that is the 'Autopilot' feature of some new cars.
I was just reading this morning about the fatal crash of a Tesla Model S - which is an absolute marvel of modern technology (up to, and including the 'Autopilot' feature), and with no disrespect to the individual who was killed in this wreck, HOW IN THE FUCK DO YOU LET YOUR FUCKING CAR DRIVE ITSELF INTO A GODDAMNED SEMI-TRACTOR TRAILER?!?!?!
Apparently this guy had made several videos showing him allowing his car to drive 'hands off' - including one where the car actually did avoid a close call - that he could've most likely avoided himself if he had been driving the car instead of making a video.
I don't know what he was doing when the wreck occurred (although if we're going to have people engaging autopilot so they can get fully immersed in the cell-phone experience during their morning commute instead of having to glance up every once in a while to avoid hitting other cars/people/immovable object - we might want to consider requiring that a 'black box' and camera system be installed in every car with this feature so that after a wreck we can see exactly how distracted they were when they trusted a computer to do their driving for them), but it wouldn't surprise me if he had been filming another video.
The car supposedly didn't see a white trailer against a white background (and the height of the trailer prevented it from seeing it with it's radar - although it seems like you would want to calibrate that shit to make it see anything that might hit the car - not just something you might hit with the bumper). I've heard some bullshit claims that a person wouldn't have been able to see it either - forgetting that people have the ability to see motion and not just differentiate between the sky and MASSIVE FUCKING TRUCKS.
In Tesla's defense - this feature requires the user to press 'accept' on a message warning them that they are still supposed to keep their hands on the wheel when engaging it, but like most messages, people just accept without reading (thus, the proliferation of malware, viruses, etc. on computers). Despite this warning, it's obvious that people are going to push the envelope of how much they trust the car to take over 'for just a second', which will quickly end up being 'a few more seconds', then 'interminable amount of time since I was actually engaged in the act of driving'.
Oh - and for just a second let me touch on all of the fucking shit car manufacturers have been loading up car dashboards with. It's fucking awesome that a modern car's dashboard can look like the 'Starship Fucking Enterprise', but I hold that there is 100% too much shit to distract 'drivers' (using that word in the loosest possible terms since most people can barely steer a car, much less drive one - which might sound like an argument for self-driving cars, but should be taken as 'some people should be required to take driving classes or not be allowed on the road').
It's fucking amazing that you can even see out of one of these cars at night with all of the glowing screens, LED's, etc. - and I've watched people fucking with touchscreens (like the massive one on the Tesla) and be so distracted that they might as well have been texting on their phone.
Anyway - in my humble opinion the dream of a self-driving car is still a long ways off. Instead of waxing poetic about the day when they can drink their latte, text, and masturbate during their commute, they need to be learning how the fuck to drive - oh, and get the fuck out of the fast lane if you are just going to drive the same speed as the car next to you moron.
-Skullfucked And Out Of Ideas.
Next Time: I continue to bitch about random shit unless someone has something Revit related they want me to address.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Another Software Package Sucks The Dick
Well, it's finally happening - due to not using Revit, I'm running out of shit to bitch about in regards to it.
What's awesome is that one of the projects I've been working on has a team of people working on it in Revit (I'll give you a hint - it's not one of the ones that was completed so that I could issue my drawings). It's a government project too - so besides Revit being an absolute 'must have', it's also being reviewed by dozens of people who are trying to justify their part in the bureacracy (and who, despite all working in the same department - only seem to be capable of communicating with each other via the 3rd parties that are doing the design work (us included).
You can literally watch conversations go back and forth in the drawing markups. One guy will recommend that we put equipment on the East wall, then decide later that the West wall is better (no problem, because we were just starting out). Then another guy says 'We should put it on the East wall to leave more clearance', only to be countered by the first guy. You know what guys? Go talk it out, then send me one fucking set of markups instead of 3-4 conflicting ones.
The funniest part is, that for all means and purposes, it's just one rectangular room inside of an existing building (roughly 10,000 s.f.) that is being converted into a massive server room - but there is one metric fuckton of stuff being crammed into it. Over 250 data racks, 16 HVAC units, sprinkler system, lights, and of course - my equipment, which consists of piping and other equipment for a 'Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus' or 'VESDA' system.
I had some limited experience designing this kind of system before - and knew how to run the necessary calculations, however (because this is a government job) they required a set of calculations generated by a piece of 3rd party (manufacturer developed) software called 'Aspire2'. In theory, this software is pretty awesome, because it allows you to build the system, and it will generate a 3d 'parametric', run calcs, and spit out reports.
With no training, and no resources (except for one guy who had used it before, but who admitted that he didn't really know what he was doing either), I dove into it and started doing a layout. The first thing I noticed in the software (besides the fact that the interface looked like it was made by some first year programming student) was the lack of an 'undo' function. Once you did something, your only choice was to manually backtrack - and due to other bugs in the software, this wasn't always easy (or possible).
I got into a habit of changing one thing, saving, changing the next, saving, and thank god - because on several occasions the thing would just go tits up. At least once it corrupted the file (fortunately I had a backup), and even once I finally got all of the information entered (which, due to it's inability to import anything, required manually measuring and entering data from my drawings) the calculations wouldn't work out correctly.
I fought it for a while - and even pondered going in and making some tweaks to the code of the program to make it spit out what I wanted (one parameter had an arbitrary maximum), before finally deciding to just let it do whatever and I would doctor the reports as necessary. It was extremely close to being correct (and by the time they tweak it out in the field, it will definitely work), so I wasn't too worried about it.
They had been shuffling HVAC equipment locations around (and sending me very unhelpful .pdfs of the new layouts - complete with no idea which way the airflow of the units was going), and I had asked one of the reviewers (the guy who had sketched the original layout - which was part of the problem) how he wanted to go about tweaking the system to prevent the units from affecting our system.
I got back a hilarious answer - he said that because the HVAC units were STILL getting moved around, to basically ignore them, lay the system out as if they weren't there, and then they would make tweaks in the field as necessary. Fortunately, because I didn't have to worry about my layout clashing with anything in their stupid fucking Revit model, I was able to put together a comprehensive set of drawings, but was still running up against the limitations of the calculation software.
I still wasn't sure how I would go about doctoring the reports when I exported the first set of calculations. For some reason the developer only gave it the ability to export to HTML (an odd choice - although it does allow them to be opened by anyone with a web browser). I was getting ready to print them to .pdf when it hit me. I opened the HTML file it generated in wordpad, made the necessary tweaks (just one per system - although one was WAY out of tolerance), saved the file, and 'voila', it looked EXACTLY the way I needed it to.
I had been meaning to write the developer a scathing critique of their software (and still wrote them a fairly terse review) but because I was able to figure out a 10 second workaround I decided to make it more productive - presenting them with suggestions for how they could make the software better (of course, some of the 'suggestions' were barely disguised insults). I even told them how I circumvented the built-in limitations of the softare (I'll be curious if I hear back from them).
I'm pretty sure I haven't heard the end of this project. Previous ones from the same client have apparently drug on for months - even years as they change their minds, change them back, realize they forgot some extremely important design criteria, attempt to blame my firm, get smacked down hard, before finally relenting and paying us so we can move on. The Reviteers involved will be stuck dicking with their model long after I am done - because while any 'as-built' drawings that come back to me will take minutes to change, theirs could take days or weeks.
Since I've submitted 3d parametric drawings (intelligent ones at that), my end of the bargain is held up without ever having to set foot inside of Revit. Meanwhile, some poor Revit junkie will have to figure out how to get them to show up (or model them), but as I said, any coordination will be done in the field (which is how most projects end up getting coordinated in the first place), and that degree of separation is the one thing that takes the sting out of the rest of the frustration involved with a project like this.
That, and the fact that whenever I go into this project - it's open in seconds, will never require 'conversion' (no matter what version of ACAD I upgrade to), and (of course) the hilarity of opening the latest .pdfs of their model and still seeing lights inexplicably hosted to data racks, and knowing that somewhere, someone is cussing up a storm because they can't figure out where the fuck their lights keep going.
Fuck Revit, Fuck The System, and Fuck the Fuckety Fuck Fuck Fuck.
Sincerely,
SkullFuck
Next Time: I rant about.... something.
What's awesome is that one of the projects I've been working on has a team of people working on it in Revit (I'll give you a hint - it's not one of the ones that was completed so that I could issue my drawings). It's a government project too - so besides Revit being an absolute 'must have', it's also being reviewed by dozens of people who are trying to justify their part in the bureacracy (and who, despite all working in the same department - only seem to be capable of communicating with each other via the 3rd parties that are doing the design work (us included).
You can literally watch conversations go back and forth in the drawing markups. One guy will recommend that we put equipment on the East wall, then decide later that the West wall is better (no problem, because we were just starting out). Then another guy says 'We should put it on the East wall to leave more clearance', only to be countered by the first guy. You know what guys? Go talk it out, then send me one fucking set of markups instead of 3-4 conflicting ones.
The funniest part is, that for all means and purposes, it's just one rectangular room inside of an existing building (roughly 10,000 s.f.) that is being converted into a massive server room - but there is one metric fuckton of stuff being crammed into it. Over 250 data racks, 16 HVAC units, sprinkler system, lights, and of course - my equipment, which consists of piping and other equipment for a 'Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus' or 'VESDA' system.
I had some limited experience designing this kind of system before - and knew how to run the necessary calculations, however (because this is a government job) they required a set of calculations generated by a piece of 3rd party (manufacturer developed) software called 'Aspire2'. In theory, this software is pretty awesome, because it allows you to build the system, and it will generate a 3d 'parametric', run calcs, and spit out reports.
With no training, and no resources (except for one guy who had used it before, but who admitted that he didn't really know what he was doing either), I dove into it and started doing a layout. The first thing I noticed in the software (besides the fact that the interface looked like it was made by some first year programming student) was the lack of an 'undo' function. Once you did something, your only choice was to manually backtrack - and due to other bugs in the software, this wasn't always easy (or possible).
I got into a habit of changing one thing, saving, changing the next, saving, and thank god - because on several occasions the thing would just go tits up. At least once it corrupted the file (fortunately I had a backup), and even once I finally got all of the information entered (which, due to it's inability to import anything, required manually measuring and entering data from my drawings) the calculations wouldn't work out correctly.
I fought it for a while - and even pondered going in and making some tweaks to the code of the program to make it spit out what I wanted (one parameter had an arbitrary maximum), before finally deciding to just let it do whatever and I would doctor the reports as necessary. It was extremely close to being correct (and by the time they tweak it out in the field, it will definitely work), so I wasn't too worried about it.
They had been shuffling HVAC equipment locations around (and sending me very unhelpful .pdfs of the new layouts - complete with no idea which way the airflow of the units was going), and I had asked one of the reviewers (the guy who had sketched the original layout - which was part of the problem) how he wanted to go about tweaking the system to prevent the units from affecting our system.
I got back a hilarious answer - he said that because the HVAC units were STILL getting moved around, to basically ignore them, lay the system out as if they weren't there, and then they would make tweaks in the field as necessary. Fortunately, because I didn't have to worry about my layout clashing with anything in their stupid fucking Revit model, I was able to put together a comprehensive set of drawings, but was still running up against the limitations of the calculation software.
I still wasn't sure how I would go about doctoring the reports when I exported the first set of calculations. For some reason the developer only gave it the ability to export to HTML (an odd choice - although it does allow them to be opened by anyone with a web browser). I was getting ready to print them to .pdf when it hit me. I opened the HTML file it generated in wordpad, made the necessary tweaks (just one per system - although one was WAY out of tolerance), saved the file, and 'voila', it looked EXACTLY the way I needed it to.
I had been meaning to write the developer a scathing critique of their software (and still wrote them a fairly terse review) but because I was able to figure out a 10 second workaround I decided to make it more productive - presenting them with suggestions for how they could make the software better (of course, some of the 'suggestions' were barely disguised insults). I even told them how I circumvented the built-in limitations of the softare (I'll be curious if I hear back from them).
I'm pretty sure I haven't heard the end of this project. Previous ones from the same client have apparently drug on for months - even years as they change their minds, change them back, realize they forgot some extremely important design criteria, attempt to blame my firm, get smacked down hard, before finally relenting and paying us so we can move on. The Reviteers involved will be stuck dicking with their model long after I am done - because while any 'as-built' drawings that come back to me will take minutes to change, theirs could take days or weeks.
Since I've submitted 3d parametric drawings (intelligent ones at that), my end of the bargain is held up without ever having to set foot inside of Revit. Meanwhile, some poor Revit junkie will have to figure out how to get them to show up (or model them), but as I said, any coordination will be done in the field (which is how most projects end up getting coordinated in the first place), and that degree of separation is the one thing that takes the sting out of the rest of the frustration involved with a project like this.
That, and the fact that whenever I go into this project - it's open in seconds, will never require 'conversion' (no matter what version of ACAD I upgrade to), and (of course) the hilarity of opening the latest .pdfs of their model and still seeing lights inexplicably hosted to data racks, and knowing that somewhere, someone is cussing up a storm because they can't figure out where the fuck their lights keep going.
Fuck Revit, Fuck The System, and Fuck the Fuckety Fuck Fuck Fuck.
Sincerely,
SkullFuck
Next Time: I rant about.... something.
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